its not even about that. my car was designed in the 80's, but the difference is that when japanese engineers design something, 9 times out of 10 it's designed to be easier for the user, not nightmarish.

I've never found myself working on an American car and saying to myself "Wow, this was really well designed. I bet someone put a lot of time and effort into making my life simpler here." It's usually something along the lines of "What the fuck were these morons thinking?"

Case in point: the door ajar switch that I also just replaced. You're literally supposed to pull the entire door panel out and disassemble everything to do this job, but if GM had the forsight to just drill the hole in the door a quarter inch bigger, the switch would just slip right in and out. All the stupid little shit like that is what makes these cars complete pieces of shit.